


Eivor

by grayspider1974



Category: Vikings - Fandom
Genre: Multi, Past Non-Con, gender nonconformity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-08
Updated: 2018-07-31
Packaged: 2019-05-19 20:41:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 8
Words: 6,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14880848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grayspider1974/pseuds/grayspider1974
Summary: In which Ivar the Boneless goes through puberty, and experiences some unexpected physical changes. This might explain Ivar's moody behavior!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> "Eivor" is generally considered the feminine form of Ivar.

Disclamer: I do not own Vikings. Please do not sue or blood eagle me, I do this as a form of therapy.  
Note to readers: In case you've not read some of my other works, my take on Ivar doesn't exactly fit into the standard "three basic flavours" of sexuality. A lot of differently abled people, including myself don't really fit the common gender stereotypes...and when I was an adolescent, my combination of genetics, high-functioning autism and unusually high levels of testosterone made me look and act more like a boy than a girl, and this provoked people of both sexes to physically and sexually abuse me (and yes, most of them were LGTBQ). Quite frankly, I don't hate gay people, but I do hate people who fetishize the differently abled in an attempt to fit them into their own narrow and self-serving view of the world, so be warned! As I am writing this, I am recovering from a surgery that removed part of my uterus and several fibroid tumours that were wrecking havoc with my hormones and reproductive system, and I'm lucky they didn't have to remove my ovaries, because then I would LITERALLY be a Female Eunuch. I've been on painkillers and sitting on a bag of ice for the past week, but the post-operative pain from this surgery is one of the things which (along with forcible sodomy, childbirth, a couple of incidents involving severe food poisoning and having a large chunk of glass pulled out of my foot) is one of the things I've experienced in my life that can truly be said to have hurt like a bugger. I've also watched the one person I liked enough that I actually WANTED to have sex with them rot away from the inside due to liver disease, which is not physically painful but hurts in an entirely different way...but in the words of Leonard Cohen, love is not a victory march, but a cold and broken Hallelujah. Peace, y'all!

Harald Finehair stripped off his clothes and removed his piercing, because any sort of metal would heat up in the sauna and cause painful burns. He set it in a small tray on a bench beside the door of the sauna, where some girl had left a few rings and other trinkets of a tastefully feminine nature along with the small, simple Mjollnir pendant that Ivar the Boneless wore as well as Ivar's leg braces and favorite leather jacket and trews. Nobody messed with Ivar's things even when he left them alone, because the Gimp had a short temper and was as pleasant as a rabid wolverine. Ivar liked to bite, and was extremely good at throwing things, but when Harald entered the sauna his young friend was in an unusually genial mood despite the rumours that Ivar had been ill the past few months. In fact he seemed to have grown a bit since Harald had seen him last, and now took up much of the top bench of the sauna. Ivar was quite self-conscious about his deformed legs, so he had wrapped them in a long grey towel and could not move to offer the hottest seat in the sauna to Harald as tradition demanded, but Harald scootched in beside him anyway while Ivar's girl Freydis lashed him with oak leaves.  
"Hullo, Harald," Ivar said. "Freydis said you didn't want to sleep with her. Why is that? Do you think she's ugly?" Ivar's smile made him look like the sweetest and most innocent lad in all of Norway, but icy blue murder still lurked behind his eyes.  
"No," said Harald. Freydis was gorgeous, like dawn after a long winter's night, and even more clever than she was beautiful, and she smelled as delicious as she looked, too. "She's your girlfriend, Ivar!" he said at last.   
"She's my FRIEND, Harald...but she wants babies, and you're the biggest, toughest, smartest, and meanest badass in all of Norway...aside of course from myself." Ivar's wide eyed look of fake humility nearly made Harald laugh out loud. "I suggested Hvitserk, but Freydis would have none of him."  
"Hvitserk's a dumbass, and downright funny looking," Freydis explained. "I don't want ugly, stupid children!"  
"Hvitserk's not that bad," said Harald. "He comes from the same bloodlines as Ivar does."  
"My brother and I have a distinguished pedigree" said Ivar. "We come from a long line of pussy hounds. Woof, woof!" As Freydis knelt on the bench and straddled Ivar's hips he snaked around and blew her a kiss. "Don't tell me you're still crying over that skinny bitch. I told you Astrid was no good for you. She smelled bad and she didn't even like men." Astrid had not been a particularly attractive girl, though she had had lovely blue eyes. However, her eyes were not as large or as blue as Ivar's eyes were, which blazed like the fox fires that sometimes flickered in the swamps at night. Ivar's long, slim, nicely groomed hands suddenly reached out and grabbed Harald's own hand and placed it over Ivar's heart. "It's not right that you should be lonely, my friend."  
"Oh, Sweet Frig..." Harald said. For a moment he sat as Ivar's heart thudded against his fingers. "I'm afraid you've made a mistake, Ivar. Halfdan was the bodily infamous one in my family. I like dick about as much as Astrid did..." Then he felt something pressing against his hand, and blurted out "WHAT IN THE NINE WORLDS ARE THESE?"  
"They're called boobs, Harald" Ivar said, and Freydis helped him sit up. Sure enough, he (or rather she) had breasts. They were cute, perky things, not large but nicely shaped and right out where Harald could see them.  
"Those weren't there the last time we had a sauna together!" Harald yelped. "What in Frig's name happened to you!"  
Ivar looked down, like any shy and modest maiden. "I went through puberty," Ivar said. "and growing these was not as shocking or as painful as having my first period, which is really as awful as women all say it is. I get terribly moody."  
"You're moody all the time!" Harald said, and slapped away an exploratory hand that was creeping towards his privates.  
"She's much worse at That Time Of The Month," said Freydis. "I have to hold her and rub her stomach, and she cries and cries and can't stop crying..."  
"But you're a...dude...aren't you?" Harald asked. "Ivar the Boneless, son of Ragnar Lothbrook, pitiless and cruel and as pleasant as a rabid wolverine...."  
"Not exactly," Ivar said. "Technically speaking, there's not that much difference between a boy with a small deformed penis and a girl with an unusually large clitoris who hates wearing dresses and can't do ladies things worth shit. The only person who knew about this was Mumma, until Sigurd..." Ivar burst into tears, then after a minute or two managed to calm down enough to add "He raped my ass. It hurts, you know...ass rape literally hurts like a bugger. If Mumma hadn't heard me screaming..."  
"Oh, sweet Frig in all her frills and furbelows...." Harald stroked Ivar's head and neck. Male or female, Ivar had beautifully soft black hair and lovely skin, and smelled like pine gum and the oils Freydis rubbed into his skin and hair to keep them soft and shiny.  
"You said once that you wanted to rule all of Norway, Harald. I can make that happen. I am after all a prin...cess, daughter of Ragnar Lothbrook the Wrath of God and Queen Aslaug of the Volsunga Dynasty." Ivar gazed into Harald's eyes and placed one nicely-groomed hand on his knee. "Even if I'm a nasty little bitch who can't have babies, Freydis can help us with that if you're willing to have her as your concubine." Ivar and Freydis both smiled winningly, but Harald excused himself as politely as he could.   
"I need to go cool off," he said, and beat a hasty retreat.  
Freydis and Ivar exchanged rueful grins, silent for a moment. Eventually, Ivar said "Do you want to use the strap on tonight, Freydis...or do I take a turn?"


	2. Democratikos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Floki returns from Iceland and sees how Ivar (or rather Eivor) has changed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Periodically, I encounter people who (mostly because their understanding of Norse history and culture comes from neo-Nazi websites) are totally unaware of the fact that Iceland was a democracy throughout the Viking and Medieval period. The Icelanders allowed women to vote and own property, had a much higher degree of literacy than any European nation of that time, and Catholics and Heathens existed side by side with surprisingly little friction (although Eric the Red's wife supposedly refused to sleep with him until he converted). In short, they were about as far from the popular Wagnerian stereotypes as one can get!

Floki the Mariner hove into port with a shipload of eider down and salted puffin meat. His new colony (the first democracy since Julius Caesar got too big for his britches) had thrived since his people had discovered how tasty the strange little birds that swam instead of flew were, or that their ducky compatriots shed a fine, white down that made wonderful pillows and duvets, and sheep thrived there as well where there was grass....but men and women could not eat grass and grew tired quickly of a diet consisting entirely of meat, so now that Lagertha had been deposed it was safe to return to Kattegat to trade for vegetables and grain and other things that did not grown well on an island that was basically a large volcanic rock with a few mosses and grasses growing out of its crevices, jutting up out of a cold and unforgiving sea. Floki pitied Lagertha, because the foolish woman had been so ungrateful for what the Gods had given her that she had usurped the throne from her son Bjorn, whom Floki had loved more than any of his brothers save for Ivar, the youngest. As Floki set foot on the pier, he searched for the crippled lad that had been his special charge, but no scuttling form with fuzzy black hair came crawling through the mud to greet him as he walked to the Great Hall , which had been re-built so recently that it still smelled like tar and freshly-cut wood. He found Hvitserk sitting inside with three beautiful young women. Floki recognized the former slave girl Magrethe, who was hugely pregnant, but not the girl whose buxom figure and long wheat-coloured curls reminded him painfully of what his sweet Helga had looked like when she was young, nor the tall, dark-haired maiden whose velvet dress trimmed with black French lace bespoke something that Floki has seldom seen in Kattegat before...good taste. Queen Aslaug's taste had been opulent (though such things suited her) and Lagertha's had been excessive to the point of vulgarity, and Floki was pleased to see that someone had gotten rid of her butt-ugly throne. He flokked about for a moment, at a loss for words and dreading that the strange, tall girl in the black French lace might indeed be French, when Hvitserk rose and embraced Floki.  
"FLOKI!" Hvitserk shouted gleefully. "We thought you were lost at sea!"  
"I was lost, but now I am found," said Floki. His hand danced in the air. "I see you are well....I suppose I should address you as Your Majesty, now?"  
Hvitserk nodded, grinning ruefully. "I am King Hvitserk Ragnarsson, ruler of all Norway. I am now master of the house and keeper of the zoo."  
"And where is your brother Ivar?" Floki asked. "He did not greet me at the pier."   
The tall girl regarded him with wide, blue eyes. Whoever she was, she had a pretty face and Floki was certain he had seen her somewhere before. She bent, and lifted the hem of her dress, revealing the metal braces that were hidden beneath her skirts. "there's been a few changes, Floki...." she said, and smiled sweetly. "I went through puberty, and well..."  
"EEEEE!" Floki screamed, as utterly transfixed as he would have been had he been told that Hvitserk had married a Frenchwoman.  
"Don't worry, Floki!" Ivar said. "I may call myself Eivor now, but the only real difference is that I'm now a bloodthirsty, ruthless bitch instead of the angry, helpless little crippled boy that you once knew..."  
"EEEEE!!" Floki continued.  
"...and I am in need of a husband. I know I am young, but I have always loved you even when I was a child, and you should not be lonely now that Helga is dead..."  
"EEEEE!!!" Floki continued.  
"...and from a political point of view, such a marriage would make a great deal of sense. Think about it...Floki the humble shipwright, married to a princess of the Volsunga dynasty!" Ivar smiled beseechingly, all sweetness and innocence.  
"I CAN'T!!!" Floki blurted out at last. I'm an old, old man, and I want nothing to do with your sort of politics! I've founded..." he paused to catch his breath "...a colony based on the principles of democratikos. We have no need of kings or queens or royal houses!" He sat down. "I'm sorry, Ivar. I won't do it, even for you!"  
Ivar's full, pink lip trembled. Floki had always thought of his charge as a mean and spiteful boy, but here was a stone cold fox as attractive as his sweet Helga had been many years ago. "I always loved you, Floki..." Ivar said, then picked up a long staff cunningly carved in forms both human and bestial, and shlepped out of the Great Hall.  
"Now you've done it!" Hvitserk said. "She's going off to the woods to have a good cry where she things nobody can hear her, but the noise that girl makes when she's upset is utterly inhuman. We may have some Hibernian ancestry, because my sweet sibling sounds like one of the ban sidhe. I can't blame you for standing up for your principles, Floki...but there breaks a noble heart!"  
"It will mend," Floki said. "Now if you don't mind...I've got a shipment of salted puffin down by the docks, and the loveliest eider down pillows and duvets you can imagine. I can give you an excellent deal if you're willing...hee, hee!"  
'I'm not interested!" Hvitserk said.  
"We need pillows," Magrethe said. She stood up, rubbing the small of her back. "and I've got a craving for something salty."  
"Here," said Floki "Try some salted puffin!"  
Magrethe nibbled cautiously. "Mmmmm!" she said "It tastes like beef jerky, but with a slight fishiness. What sort of fish is it?"  
"Not a fish," said Floki "but a bird that swims...."  
Hvitserk smiled ruefully as the pair went off together. His elder brothers were arseholes who mpregnated women and then fled to greener pastures, but even if he was not sure if the bun in Magrethe's oven was his, Ubbe's or even sigurds, he did not want to be That Guy. Let Bjorn or Ubbe be That Guy. Hvitserk knew he probably was not the biggest, bravest warrior in all of Norway (in fact, he was less of a warrior than his baby brother Boneless who was actually his sister) but Hel would thaw out before he went against his principles!


	3. The Woeful Tragedy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Eivor makes another attempt on Lagertha's life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pretty much all drama (including TV shows like Vikings and Game of Thrones) is ultimately derived from Greek theatre.  
> The term "Black Mariah" is Victorian, but I'm sure similar vehicles have been used since Roman times.

Ubbe Ragnarsson sat on a hard marble bench, bored out of his gourd. He had been given the duty of escorting Lagertha to the theatre because the old bat had developed a taste for it since they had taken refuge in Constantinople. Ubbe preferred light hearted comedies like The Two And A Half Gentlemen or The Two Impoverished Wenches, but The Woeful Tragedy of Game of Thrones was exactly what its name implied, and it was also incredibly LONG, and although the good seats had cushions on them the one on which he was sitting was rather thin. On the whole, however, Game of Thrones was still more enjoyable than A Serbian Play had been. He squinted at the stage, trying to sort out the convoluted plot. Apparently, the noble Dominus Severus had just been betrayed by the dashing but deceitful Digitus Minimus and was being held at knife-point in the throne room of the Domus Porphyrius. Frankly, Ubbe would have enjoyed the whole thing much more if all the female characters had not been played by boys in rather silly wigs. The only women who worked in the theatre were the girls who sold drinks and fresh oranges and little snacks that usually consisted of small, defenseless creatures like dormice and squabs roasted on sticks. An orange seller passed through the stands below him, pushing a trolley. She was dressed in a velvet dress trimmed with black lace that suggested that she had unusually good taste for a plebeian, and although her face seemed pretty, she walked as though she was wearing a set of leg braces under her full skirts. Ubbe then saw the girl's beautiful blue eyes and insolent little smile, and realized who she was...and yes, Ivar had a sharp little knife of the sort used to cut up oranges poised to throw at Lagertha. Ubbe let out a blood-curdling bellow and the pair of them went tumbling over the tiered benches, coming to a halt centre stage. The audience burst into applause as they struggled, as though they thought it was all part of the show, but someone had the sense to call the aedilae, and as the fuzz hauled Ivar away by brute force, Ubbe saw that the laces on Ivar's dress had come loose, revealing a pair of rather nice, perky little breasts.  
"Vet du ikke hvem eg er?" Boneless snarled as she was handcuffed. "Du kan ikke drep meg! Eg er Eivor Banlaus! Eg er Eivor Banlaus!"   
"You might want to save that for your testimony," the aedile said, and dodged a wad of bloody spit that flew at his face. "And now you've just added assaulting an officer of the law to your charges, miss!"  
Eivor growled as she was hustled out of the theatre and into the back of a Black Mariah.


	4. Salve Mei, Christus!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Eivor invades Bishop Heahmund's solitude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Historically speaking, it was Harald Finehair who introduced Christianity to Norway, and I think he may have been inspired by the deeds of the Emperor Constantine.  
> Prisons were unisex until the Victorian era, and Byzantine prisons had a particularly bad reputation.

The peace of Bishop Heahmund's cave was shattered, as was the masonry that blocked the door of the cave except for a slot by which food entered and pails of bodily waste exited twice a day. He had spent the past three months immured in this cave, praying and contemplating his sins, doing calisthenics to avoid muscular degeneration and flagellating himself (which he really enjoyed a little too much to consider penance, but did because he could no longer enjoy some of the other pleasures that he once had due to the fact that his balls had been snaffled by a pastoral nomad) and when the wall came down, he was utterly dismayed. For a moment, the hammer-wielding figure in the doorway made him think that the heathen gods of Valhalla had followed him from Norway to torment him, but then he saw that the stranger had brown skin and a wealth of curly, black hair that framed his grotesque face like a halo, and from the other side of the cave Heahmund could smell garlic sausage on the interloper's breath.  
"OPA!!!"the interloper bellowed triumphantly, then added in a quieter voice "Eivor, he's in here!"  
"Sweet Priapic Christ...." Heahmund muttered as a young woman dressed in a gown trimmed in black lace that had once been quite elegant but was now dusty and torn shlepped into the cave.  
"Hullo, Your Grace!" the girl who had been Ivar but was now Eivor said. "I'm probably the last person you were expecting to meet. I heard that Bjorn captured, tortured and mutilated you, and had you walled up in a cave. You said you thought you could get to Lagertha by appealing to her carnal impulses, but I warned you not to do it...she's a mad, vicious bitch!"  
"So are you, apparently..." Heahmund said. "I don't know how you managed this..." He gestured to suggest the shape of a woman's body "...but you can't tempt me with it because Bjorn had his Saami tart chew my nuts to bits. Begone, succubus!"  
"What...Kylli deprived you of your manhood?" Eivor's eyes twinkled like winter stars.  
"No...she had a cousin. Snafrid, the Nutcracker of the North!" Heahmund snapped. "You know what Tacitus said about the Fennae? He said they were 'exceedingly fierce, brutish and wretched' and he was right!"  
Eivor chortled, finger on lips.  
"And in case you're wondering, I did not like you better as a boy, because contrary to popular stereotypes, not all Catholic priests are pederasts."  
Eivor assumed a wide-eyed expression of mock offended innocence "Why Heahmund...why would you THINK such a thing? Anyway, I'm not here to seduce you. I need you to come back to Norway and convert the Norse to Christianity."  
Heahmund squinted skeptically "Ivar, I know you too well to believe that you want me to do that. You're plotting something diabolical, aren't you?"   
Eivor grinned, nodding. "Damn right. I think your religion is utterly ridiculous, but I understand its value as a political tool. You see, almost as soon as I got to Constantinople, Bjorn got me thrown in prison on charges of attempted homicide , due to a rather unfortunate chance encounter with his mother in a crowded theatre which resulted in a physical altercation. It could happen to anyone!" She gestured expansively, but Heahmund could tell she was bullshitting wildly. "At any rate, I met Dimitri in prison. He's a filthy sodomite and a disgusting human being, but he protected me from the other inmates, and helped me escape."  
"As ye do to the least of your brothers and sisters, ye do to Christ!" Dimitri said and held up a pot metal Greek Orthodox cross.  
"....and while his yammering about the principles of Orthodox Christianity is nearly as tiresome as your yammering about Catholicism, among the endless stream of inane babble he taught me some of the history of Constantinople and about the Emperor Constantine himself," Eivor continued." I think that Constantine was a very great and wise ruler, because he took power at a time when the Roman Empire was on its last legs. Rome and the Western Empire were overrun by barbarians, including the Vandals, the Franks, and a truly terrible people called Germans that I believe are related to you Saxons, so Constantine moved the capital of the Empire to Byzantium, which he re-named in his own honour, but what he really needed was a way to consolidate his power, and the tool he found most useful in doing so was religion. The old Gods of Greece and Rome were not suited for this purpose, because their worship was not universal and their belief and practices varied from region to region. Some were restricted to specific professions or social classes, and some promoted individual enlightenment and self-knowledge over compliance with the good of society, so they were totally useless to him. In their place, Constantine put a modified form of Judaism that was gaining popularity among the slaves and plebeians despite the fact that previous Emperors had banned it. Constantine removed some of the more seditious elements of this religion, and made himself its official head, at least in the Eastern Orthodox faith. I've heard that the head of the Catholic church is someone you call the Pope."  
"And what is your point?" Heahmund asked.  
"My point is that I now understand the value of your religion," Eivor said. "I don't believe in it, but if I can get others to believe in it I can use Faith to move mountains!" Eivor's eyes were as blue as the Baltic Sea. "If I can't kill the big haired bitch who murdered my mother, then I want to rule all of Europe!"  
Heahmund's heart sank. The Gimp had hit upon a valid point....there were indeed people in the Church who used the Faith for political purposes, as he himself had used it to satisfy his own carnal impulses until his testicles had been snaffled. The loss of his virility and months of voluntary confinement had allowed Heahmund to contemplate his sins and he had learned to look beyond such worldly things. He stared deep into Eivor's eyes....they were big, blue and beautiful, and they seemed completely innocent and trusting but Heahmund knew the evil that lurked behind them. He suspected that the Gimp was some denizen of Sheol escaped to trouble the unhappy world, or perhaps proud Satan himself He knew it was dangerous to make a deal with such a being, and yet a faint whisper in his mind told him "You can do it...Boneless wants you to subvert the Faith for political gain, but you can subvert him...her...whatever the Gimp really is, aside from a nasty little shit...and win the souls of a nation for Christ..." Heahmund also felt a stirring in his nether regions that he had not felt since his balls had been busted, because those beautiful blue eyes were doing things to him that weren't supposed to happen to a man whose testicles no longer functioned. Heahmund got a grip on himself, and decided to shake the dust off his boots. "Forget it, bitch...." he snarled, and dashed past the pair of interlopers screaming "SALVE MEI, CHRISTUS!!!" at the top of his lungs.  
Dimitri watched the fleeing cleric with a thoughtful expression. "He runs pretty fast for a man who's been walled up in a cave. Ya want me to catch him, put the Scold's Bridle on him, and haul him back to Norway in chains?"  
"No," said Eivor. "You can't fault a man for abiding by his principles, and His Grace is the sort of man that would rather be martyred than go against his beliefs. We'll just have to find a less principled cleric. I hear Rome is riddled with bent priests of every description, so I'm sure we'll find at least one who will come with us to Norway and convert my benighted countrymen." Eivor smiled a bit too sweetly"  
"You're evil, Eivor!" said Dimitri.   
"I know," Eivor said. "Now pick me up, ya big brute. You carried me up this mountain, and now you gotta carry me down."  
Dimitri sighed, and lifted the Gimp onto his back.  
'You're a great friend, Dimitri." Eivor said. "If I weren't a cripple and you weren't bodily infamous, we could be more than just friends..." One long, slim brown hand stroked Dimitri's stubbled cheek.   
Dimitri groaned inwardly. "Thank you Jesus for making me a homosexual rather than a paraphiliac," he prayed in the stillness of his heart. "Amen!"


	5. Good Morning!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Eivor returns to Norway, Hvitserk discovers that he likes Greek sausage, and then wakes up the following morning badly hung over and with lingering regrets (or as the Saxons called it "meadoscrewan"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Norse god Loki was a noted shapeshifter, and could change his gender. He used this power to get laid and to annoy his foster brother Thor by impersonating his wife...which is something they DON'T put in the Marvel comic books!

Hvitserk woke up feeling as though something had crawled into his mouth and died. Eivor had returned to Kattegat, and they had gotten utterly shnockered, progressing through mead, beer, wine, ganja and 'shrooms so that the actual events of the evening were a little hazy, except that he was certain that a threesome with his sister and her friend was more fun than one with his brother and his wife, even though he was a little perturbed by the fact that he was a little aroused by watching Eivor play with her boobs, and his hands had a distinct pattern of bite marks that had been made by her teeth. He was fairly sure that the part where Eivor had gotten up and done that peculiar dance and then started flying around the Great Hall must have been a hallucination because Eivor could neither dance nor fly and did not own a pale blue suit, but the song that had mysteriously filled the Great Hall was stuck in Hvitserk's head now "You can do-a this, or you ca do-a that....you can go-a here, or you can go-a there..." it went, a vacuous ditty from another time that he could not stop humming. Hvitserk's head was pillowed on something firm and covered in coarse black hair that smelled like sweat, garlic sausage and hooch, and as he tried to get up he found he was pinned by a brawny, hairy brown arm that had a heart and something written in Cyrillic tattooed on it. Hvitserk stared at his sister and her friend. They shared a pillow so that Eivor's silky black hair mingled with Freydis's wheat-blonde curls, and he had the brief mental image of the two girl's faces merged into one that was half fair-skinned and blonde and half dark with icy blue eyes. "Like the Queen of Hell," Hvitserk thought.  
Eivor opened her enormous blue eyes and chirruped "Good morning, Hvitserk!" She had never looked so happy, and Hvitserk groaned in response. "Is that what I get by way of thanks?" Eivor asked, and kissed Freydis on the cheek. "Last night was Freydis's first time with a man, so I think you should let her sleep a bit more. She's tired!" The huge, garlic-smelling bulk behind Hvitserk stirred, but did not wake. "It was also your own first time with a man, Hvitserk. I'm quite astounded by you, because I thought that Sigurd and the big haired bitch that birthed Bjorn were the bodily infamous members of my family....but you are a first class FREAK!"  
"So are you, Boneless...." Hvitserk snapped.  
"Nah, I just like to watch, and chew on people from time to time. I won't tell anyone how much you like Greek sausage, I promise..." Eivor stuck her fist in her mouth "Om, nom, nom, nom, nom!"  
Hvitserk grabbed the first thing he could find and tried to smack his sibling with it, then realized he was holding a fairly large strap on and dropped it with an expression of distaste. "You are utterly depraved, Eivor. I'm not sure you're even a child of Ragnar. I think that Mother must have taken Loki into her bed when she conceived you!"  
Eivor licked her lips and played with her breasts, which unnerved Hvitserk so much that he had to look away. "Hell, yeah!" said Eivor. "Ain't I a stinker?"


	6. The Sword In the Stone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Ivar and Hvitserk travel to Wales to negotiate an alliance, and find themselves part of an even older cycle of legends than the Norse sagas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Although they have become associated with England, the tales of King Arthur are in fact Welsh, and the people he defended Britain against were in fact the Saxons, who did the same thing to the Romanized Celts as the Vikings did to the Saxons 400 years later. The tales spread to Europe and became the courtly romances that were finally bastardized by Hollywood. A much more appealing take on these fine old tales is the Danish stage musical Sverdet I Steinen, starring none other than a teenaged Alex Hogh Andersen. It's on Youtube, but I don't think it has subtitles.  
> The correct meaning of the Latin word "pagan" is "country person" and might be inferred to mean "red neck"  
> "Mynhen Lad a Hadoc" (if I've spelled that correctly) is a Welsh patriotic ballad commonly sung at rugby and soccer matches.

"Remember that we're here to make an alliance with the Welsh," said Hvitserk "so don't do anything inappropriate. Don't harass the clergy or murder anyone on a whim, and don't challenge anyone to a game of chess and then cheat, Eivor. You're good at fighting, but not good at diplomacy."  
"Hanh?" Eivor asked. "Why, of course not...don't be an idiot, Hvitserk!"  
"In fact, you should probably wait outside by the fountain," said Hvitserk. "They say the Pendragon is a prickly old man and very easily offended."  
"I promise I will behave appropriately," said Eivor. "I'm a savage, not a pagan..." A very small girl with her hair in ribbons brushed against Eivor's legs. She felt the steel braces under the velvet skirts, and looked up. "Why hello, little girl..." Eivor said sweetly. "Do you know who I am?"  
"EEEEE!!!" the little girl screamed, and ran away as fast as she could.  
"Well, she got the first syllable right," Hvitserk said drily. They entered a courtyard where a disreputable old man with a beard was playing a harp and singing passionately about how his hen had laid a haddock, beside a fountain where the water trickled thinly from the mouth of a dragon. For some reason, a sword had been thrust into the base of the statue, and there was only a couple inches of scummy green water in the pool.  
"What's all this?" Eivor asked "It looks like someone messed with the plumbing!"  
The elderly man stopped singing and said "That sword was placed their by Myriddan Ap Nudd, the last High Druid of Mona, who prophecised that whosoever drew the sword from the stone would drive the perfidious Sais from Britain. The king of Powys has also promised the hand of his fair daughter Gwynhyfar to whoever..."  
They were all suddenly sprayed with water because Eivor had shuffled over and pulled the sword from the stone. She stood in the middle of the rapidly filling pool, which the ancient Romans had connected to one of their aqueducts. She had a slightly whimsical smile on her face, and her eyes shone like winter stars. "Given that I can't father children I'll let you take the credit for this one, Hvitserk." She curtsied half mockingly. "All hail Hvitserk, King of..." She was interrupted by a loud "BAAAAH!" as a vast herd of fine, wooly Welsh sheep rushed into the courtyard to drink from the pool.


	7. Naked Aggression

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Eivor and Lagertha clash once again, with unexpected (and fatal) results.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Celts were famous for going into battle naked, and reputedly practiced head hunting and cannibalism, at least according to Greek and Roman sources which have been verified by archeological evidence.  
> "Wyrd" is what we today would call Fate or Dharma.  
> It's highly unlikely that the Vikings employed elephant cavalry, but the battle scenes with the Mumakil are among my favorite battles in TLOTR, and this elephant (which in my head canon is named Mr. Stampey) rampaged through my brain and onto the page...and yes, if you watch as many nature documentaries as I have you know that elephants run silently!  
> Bjorn's battle cry is borrowed from Terry Pratchett, who slightly paraphrased the Klingon battle cry that the writers of Star Trek borrowed from the Apaches.

Bjorn Ironside had been a very tall man since his siblings had been babes in arms, and since then he had grown exceedingly wide as well, and the torso that had given him the nickname Ironsides was starting to jiggle a bit. His tattoos were warped and faded, and he had a small chip in one of his front teeth.  
"You just HAD to ally yourself with the Caledonians," said his mother. "They go into battle naked as the day they were born."  
"Well, Ivar decided to make an alliance with the Welsh," said Bjorn "and the Welsh and the Scots hate each other almost as much as they hate the Saxons."  
"They're also got a tradition of cannibalism," said Lagertha "which is why the Emperor Hadrian built the Wall."  
"Look at it this way, Mother....when Ivar goes to war with us, he'll have an entire phalanx of shlongs bigger than his own in his face. That's sure to be a bit intimidating!"  
"She calls herself Eivor now," Lagertha said "and if there's a shlong at her eye level she just might bite it off! Bjorn...just let the Gimp kill me, I'm ready to die!"  
"No, Mother..."said Bjorn.  
"Why won't you let me die?"  
"If the da that we die is set before we are born, it is foolish to force the hand of She Who Cuts The Thread," said Bjorn. "All men and women must accept their Wyrd."  
Lagertha gave her son a Meaningful Look "Sharper than a serpent's tooth is the shame of an ungrateful child....I want to die, Bjorn!"  
"Well, I see you've familiarized yourself with the Hebrew Book of Proverbs!" said Bjorn.   
"I want to die, Bjorn. Don't be such a...oh, sweet Frig! WHAT IS THAT!?"  
Something tumpeted. It was big as a house and gray as a mouse. It had a nose like a snake, and it made the ground shake, and Eivor Boneless rode upon its back in a howdah.  
"It seems the Gimp has taken a cue from the pages of history, and emulated Hannibal Barca" said Bjorn as the elephant stormed towards them. Despite its bulk its footsteps were completely silent, due to the way its weight was distributed. "It seems I'm not the only son of Ragnar to have dealings with North Africa!" He unlimbered his axe and charged into battle screaming "TODAY IS A GOOD DAY FOR SOMEONE ELSE TO DIE!!!"  
"Damn right it is!" his mother said quietly, and followed suit.

"If this is Valhalla," said Lagertha "then I am gravely disappointed. There is nothing here but a tree in a field beside a river and....oh sweet Frig, that's the biggest spider I've ever seen! It's HIDEOUS!!"  
The arachnid in question stopped tapping away at the small oblong object that lay in the tall grass before it and said "Ugly is as ugly does, lady!" She was indeed quite large and seemed to be made of steel and cunning clockwork, save for her head which was that of a rather ugly but jolly looking middle aged woman with a large, hairy mole on her upper lip. Lagertha had the odd feeling that if she looked closely at the mole it too would have eight legs and a human face with a mole on her upper lip and be tapping away at a small, black device and so on ad infinitum. "And to answer what I suppose will be your next few questions, you are indeed dead but this is not Valhalla. No one goes to Valhalla since the Bifrost was closed. You're pretty much free to choose your own afterlife, but I would suggest reincarnation." The spider paused to lick the fluid that trickled down the side of the tree's trunk, which was amber and slightly viscous. "Your main problem is that Aethelstan was promised that he and everyone he loved would be reborn as Bjorn's children, and Aethelstan did not particularly like you, Lagertha. He thought you were a scary bitch, and that you were abusive towards your husband and your son."  
"How did I die? I imagine that Eivor succeeded in killing me..."  
"Yes and no" said the spider. "You knocked the Gimp off the back of that elephant, but then the pachyderm trampled both of you. Your son then cut your throat to save you from pain. He's waffling a bit over doing the same for Eivor, who is taking a bit longer to die and is in a great deal of pain....ah, hullo Eivor! Welcome to the Afterlife, and help yourself to some of the Mead of Poetry. What it tastes like varies from day to day, but today it tastes like Drambuie, so be thankful it's not American lite beer!"  
Eivor crawled over, dipped a cautious finger in the sap and licked it, then began eagerly lapping at the liquid that trickled down the trunk of the tree. Lagertha noticed that her foe had a particularly long, pink, nimble tongue and wondered if the Gimp knew how to eat a woman out. "So what do I do now?" Lagertha asked.  
"That's entirely up to you," said the spider. "You're in the hands of the Shekina now, and She does not cause people to sin, or punish them for their sins. People do that to themselves, and generally only succeed in making themselves miserable by doing so. Try to remember that in your next lives, both of you....there is simply no good in being a bitch! Not that I'm here to condemn either of you....I'm just here for the Mead of Poetry and free Wi-Fi." She completed her task, closed her device and took a few more licks of sap from the tree. "Are either of you ready for your next spin on the Wheel?"


	8. Welcome Back!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Hvitserk returns to Kattegat, and finds half of it missing and the rest under water.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kattegat was supposedly destroyed by either a storm or a tsunami some time in the 10th Century AD. A similar event (or possibly the same one) destroyed the Lighthouse of Alexandria and much of the Alexandria harbour at about the same time. I mentioned this event in one of my earlier stories (also involving Hvitserk). This would suggest two alternate timelines created by Lagertha's murder of her lover (and by so doing, the unborn Aino the Blind, an original character who plays a part in some of my other stories) Yikes!  
> Sigurd's "funny snake thing" is properly called a coloboma.

Hvitserk had seen enough trauma and internecine bloodshed to last him the rest of his life, culminating in the battle in which Eivor and Lagertha and half a dozen other people had been crushed in the death throes of a dying pachyderm. Hvitserk had grown attached to the great grey beast that he had shipped all the way from Casablanca, and had wept when someone had put an arrow through Mr. Stampy's eye, and wept even harder when the dust settled and he saw Bjorn sitting in the midst of the carnage, covered in blood and clutching a corpse in each arm. It was easy to recognize Eivor's glossy black plaits, but it took him a moment to recognise the disordered mass of bloody white hair of the other mangled body that Bjorn clutched to his bosom because the side of Lagertha's skull had been bashed in. Bjorn was softly singing a lullaby that his mother had sung to him long ago, and although his face was a stoic mask tears mingled with the blood that stained his beard and his eyes were wild with grief. Hvitserk had never really noticed before, but his eldest and youngest brother had the same sort of eyes. He simply walked up to Bjorn and silently hugged him, and was relieved when Ubbe came stumbling out of the gathering dusk and hugged him too. After a moment, Hvitserk spoke. "Meg and I sort of have a thing going, Ubbe. She's threatened to castrate you if she ever sees you again. She's given birth to twin girls last spring that are probably Sigurd's because they've both got that funny snake thing he had in their eyes, but I plan to raise them as mine."  
Ubbe chuckled.  
"I also got another girl pregnant," Hvitserk said "and there's even a couple of princesses I might marry...one Welsh, and one Jewish."  
"You're going to have your hands full when you get back to Kattegat," said Ubbe "unless Harald's done something heinous, like usurping the throne and converting everyone to Christianity." Hvitserk had laughed at that, but as he sailed towards Kattegat his heart sank because he found that Kattegat was...gone, or more precisely that most of it was under water. He found Magrethe sitting on the roof of what had once been the Great Hall with her two girls, along with a bedraggled, blanket-wrapped Freydis, the old conjure woman who had replaced his mother as Kattegat's midwife and chief volva and who had been given the odd nickname of Granny Tits, the Seer (who was stoically playing the jaw harp) and several others, all of whom looked like they'd been ridden over Hell's half acre and then hung up to dry.  
"What in the Nine Hells happened here?" Hvitserk asked.  
"There was a terrific storm that washed away half of Kattegat and flooded the rest," said Magrethe. "We've been waiting for three days for someone to send help or for the waters to subside, but the Seer says Harald fucked all of us and declared himself King of all Norway and won't send aid unless we swear fealty to him and convert to Christianity."  
The Seer stopped playing his jaw harp. "I told Lagertha that she should have built levies instead of fortifications," he said "but she wouldn't listen to me!"  
Something cradled inside Freydis's blankets stirred and then uttered a blood-curdling screech. Hvitserk could swear he recognized Eivor's outraged screaming in the infant's voice.  
"I gave birth the night of the storm," said Freydis. "She's a lovely, healthy baby girl. I'm thinking of naming her Danerys."  
"Oh, sweet Frig!" said Hvitserk. "Where would you come up with such an outlandish name? Give her to me!" The squalling bundle was indeed a fine, healthy girl with eyes as blue as the Baltic and silky black hair. "You're a fierce little thing, aren't you? Eivor is your name...." Hvitserk crooned. "I'm taking you to Iceland. Would you like that?"  
The three day old infant should have still been unable to focus her eyes or smile, yet she stared straight into Hvitserk's eyes, grinned impishly and said "BJORK!"


End file.
